RIA

December 02, 2009

Soon, we'll be publishing our newest research on presentation
technologies, where we'll be spending a good share of time talking about the fit client. The fit
client offers a blend of benefits from previous and current generation
presentation technologies, including tighter integration with the underlying operating system, ability to execute when not connected, and a very rich user experience (UXP). These capabilities are illustrated in the
diagram below.

Obvious examples of fit client technologies include solutions from entrenched vendors such as Adobe (Air), Microsoft (Silverlight), and Sun (Java FX). But looming on the horizon is a major update to the HTML specification that could pose a serious threat to vendor technologies.

Based on open web technologies, HTML 5 will offer many capabilities that rival those of the commercial fit client. Since the release of the HTML 5 draft specification in 2008, many browser vendors are already supporting some of its capabilities. However, full support won't be complete for years. While this offers proprietary technologies such as Air and Silverlight a short-term advantage in terms of capabilities, they still lack the deep market penetration and ubiquity of the browser.

Without question, the presentation technology space is a volatile hotbed of innovation. As the products and technologies continue to evolve, applications will undergo amazing transformations. Vendors are forging ahead in providing products with unprecedented capabilities, while evolving open web technologies aim to supplant the vendor solutions before they ever gain widespread adoption. The race is on to provide multi-channel, branded, and context aware experiences filled with rich media, and each are on a collision course that is going to define the future of presentation technologies. It's going to be a wild and exciting ride.

December 04, 2008

Having worked years in the software industry, I'm hesitant to attack software company executives' comments because there's usually some meat behind their statements. But, I was reading the following article by Stephen Shankland at CNET, "With JavaFX, Sun seeks new coders, new revenue." and all I could think is the pressure is getting to Jonathan Schwartz of Sun. I kept reading waiting for the punchline or at least a glimpse of how far gone he is, such as "we expect Skynet to be our biggest customer", but no such luck.

Here's some of the really questionable quotes:

But Chief Executive Jonathan Schwartz, despite Sun's dropping revenue, low stock price, and large new layoff, believes that JavaFX will overcome its obstacles.

Perhaps, but this would top Microsoft Excel overtaking Lotus 123 as the greatest comeback in software history. While I understand the reasoning behind JavaFX Script, it has nothing to do with Java, doesn't leverage Sun's existing base of developers on the Java platform and is proprietary when they could have used an established dynamic programming language. At least I can code C# in Silverlight.

"We're more relevant today than any other software developer on the face of the Earth."

I'll leave this one as an exercise to the reader to analyze.

"The problem with browsers, when viewed as the default mechanism for
delivering content for the Web, is that browsers have become hostile
territory," Schwartz argued. "Internet Explorer is owned by Microsoft.
Firefox is owned by Google, at this point. Chrome is owned by Google.
Beyond that, with maybe (the exception) of Safari, which is owned by
Apple, there is no safe route to distribute your content into the
marketplace."

Granted, there's still issues with CSS support, but compatibility across browsers continues to get better because developers are demanding it and because Firefox and Webkit are focused on superb industry-standard implementations that many users point to as reference implementations. Moreover, the minor nuances are not getting in the way of building rich application interfaces.

And, yes, Google has made a large contribution to the Mozilla Foundation, but it doesn't own the extremely large base of developers that have contributed to Firefox or it's ecosystem. Mozilla's Chief also maintains a strong stance that Google does not influence Mozilla's direction in a proprietary direction and will seek alternate financing if that ever became the case. Regardless, there's no basis to represent the Mozilla community as being 'owned' by Google.

In the race for the one stop shop for rich user experience, across mobile and desktop platforms, in my opinion, JavaFX is the horse in last place, with one of it's shoes falling off and an overweight jockey.

November 18, 2008

I’m attending Adobe MAX this week in San Francisco (Nov 17-19, 2008). There’s been some very strong announcements by Adobe regarding the expansion of the Flash platform for enterprise and consumer markets. Through it all one craw still stick in my hat and that is does Adobe have what it takes to win in the rich internet application race?

Take a quick glance at the RIA market and you will see that Adobe has a very strong presence in everything from media to enterprise applications. With support from the likes of Salesforce.com and SAP, it would seem that they are a clear market leader. That is if you discount Ajaxas a platform unto itself and the fact that Microsoft has been a keen comeback competitor. Moreover, Google is not likely to go linger about quietly in this race.

Additionally, up till now, Adobe’s success has been its ability to play nicely with other platforms. PDF readers and Flash plug-ins are available for just about all critical platforms. Will attempts by Adobe to take an ownership stake that steals thunder from these platforms affect their status? To answer this we need to look at who would be affected by this.

The most significant victim is the desktop Java Runtime Environment. The write-once, run-anywhere mantra is slowly being consumed by the Flash player and Adobe AIR. Moreover, with Sun’s inability to gain support for Java FX, their current structural instability, Adobe’s growing presence on the desktop and in the browser, and the increase in the number of Flex programmers, the Java applet should be nothing more than a memory within a couple of years.

Next in line to be impacted is Google. Google is a strong component of Ajax and invested heavily in tools and technologies that leverage Ajaxfor rich internet applications. Unlike Sun, which has been unable to leverage their large installed base of server-side developers, Google has enabled Web developers to deliver very usable Web applications without requiring a significant learning curve. Moreover, Google's main revenue stream is advertising and Flash-clients consuming Google services without also delivering the associated advertising has a limited life span. This will require Google to act as a competitor to Adobe in the RIA race.

Finally, and never to be discounted, is Microsoft with Silverlight. Currently a nascent player, Microsoft is bargaining for a position at the table and does not like to lose. Microsoft’s .NET platform, which is the basis for Silverlight, has some powerful application features and offers more programming languages than just ActionScript, which could be an influential factor in attracting developers to the platform. In addition, there are a number of .NET programmers now familiar with XAML and Windows Presentation Framework.

Adobe has always offered the market good adjunct capabilities, I hope with this recent attempt to gain adoption of a much larger platform, they haven’t bitten off more than they can chew.